The Myth of Eternal Damnation

a reply to: tallcool1

If Heaven is only for people who meet the conditions that they claim God and Christ set for us - it will remain eternally empty. Other than Jesus Himself, no one ever has nor ever will meet the standard.

Good! Glad you got it! You see what Christianity is all about.

Christians believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God; that's a foundational requirement of Christianity. Don't believe the Bible is true? Well, you're something other than an authentic Christian.

That said, the whole premise of Christianity is that human beings are sinful and can never get to heaven on their own. We can't get there through our good works or by being a good person. The only way we can get there is through Jesus Christ as Savior.

God, being perfectly holy, cannot allow sin in his presence. Christ, the only sinless person, was the only one who met that high standard. He became the perfect sacrifice for humanity's sins. People who believe in and follow Christ (Christians), are credited with his righteousness through justification. We are "made holy" through him.

Believe it or not, it's your choice. I'm never going to convince you. You can be angry, skeptical, cynical or just plain stubborn, but you're right: Heaven is only for people who meet the conditions God and Christ set for us, and it's not that WE think that. It's that the Bible says it, especially in Paul's letters, such as Romans and Galatians.

So take it or leave it. Take Christ and be born again into his holiness, or leave it and take the consequences in eternity.

Oh, and yes, Christians DO continue to sin. But Christ's death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins past, present and future. He didn't die for those who refuse to believe in him. That would be universalism, and the Bible does NOT teach that.

a reply to: AfterInfinity

1. I worship no one.

Maybe you worship no ONE, but you do worship some THING. That's your own opinion over what God tells you. Millions of people do that.

Satan's sin was that he refused to serve God. We're all like him. We all want to be our own god. We want to be in charge, we want to "decide our purpose." You do and I do.

That's the essence of idolatry in the 21st century. We "worship" everything except God. We put everything in first place rather than God.

Of course God thinks a lot of himself. He's God and we're not!

a reply to: AfterInfinity

Perhaps you could explain why you hold that opinion.

Have you ever read The Wars of the Jews by Josephus?
I think a lot of Christian preachers ignore what happened to the Jews in 70 AD and put the parables to use to make morality sermons, and so distort the view of them by most people, having heard these other interpretations.
If you look at each of the parables without those preconceived ideas, then you can see how they fit the scenario of people who had an opportunity but failed for one reason or another.
Jesus doesn't add himself an interpretation that these were to be applied to any individual person at any time.

originally posted by: Skyfloating

originally posted by: deadeyedick

First all things are possible With GOD. Just because we find something inconvienent or unfathomable does not make it false. In an electromagnetic universe it is very possible to create a place that could complete what you call a myth. To know that we are all energy and a place could be made where not only that energy is trapped but also harnessed for some benefit is a far more plausable answer other than labeling something myth or impossible because it does not make sense to you or you just do not want to accept it.

Nowhere do I imply that its impossible. Its more of a criticism of policy than a questioning of whether its possible. If the policy is in effect (which is doubtful, according to many bright theological minds), then its not surprising there would be some souls who question it and say "hey, can we reduce the punishment to 200 Trillion years? Its becoming quite pointless".



If they're going to have an eternal damnation policy in effect, we`re going to question it.

Well leaving your mind open to all possibilities is a very wise choice for all. I think to understand the policy is easiest by questioning all knowledge we currently have about the past and even our limited understanding of science. Try to imagine that we are maybe stuck in a place where at most we use only 10% of our brains and those outside of this mental vortex are using all of theirs. My best answer to all of this is seen through energies. I say take away all the physical we see and just try to imagine the energies based on what we know right now of currents. In this manner you might begin to see that more worlds are possible to be surrounging us right now using positive and negative. Not only could we be in a negative system right now acting as protons,nutrons and electrons, a positive system could be what we call heaven. Imagine the same physical make up we live in but only being immersed in a generally positive spirit that does not have the same negative influences on us like those pesky impulses to survive. When you look around the power scructure of our world it seems to be negative and controlled by negative.

The eternal damnation part could be meaning forever cast out from this particular system and anyone remaining here would see you as being gone forever. It could be that there is some need for a person to be used as some type of electrical producer in a place that is very much built by technology we do not understand. As we can see in nature everything gets used and recycled and to be taken out of that cycle could be a bad thing in the long run. I enjoy questioning these things myself but i have never started from a position of not believing that we are in a controlled environment and reverse enginering this is the best we can do. There is a big picture where all the pieces fit and on a greater scale if this whole thing was planned then we knew before hand of what our end would be and we were ok with that. Perhaps some programs have infected the plan or some have gone rouge and those will be damned eternally or tortured into submission. Again truely anything is possible and perhaps we are supposed to question everything to some extent.

originally posted by: ConvincedMan
a reply to: AfterInfinity

1. I worship no one.

Maybe you worship no ONE, but you do worship some THING. That's your own opinion over what God tells you. Millions of people do that.

Satan's sin was that he refused to serve God. We're all like him. We all want to be our own god. We want to be in charge, we want to "decide our purpose." You do and I do.

That's the essence of idolatry in the 21st century. We "worship" everything except God. We put everything in first place rather than God.

Of course God thinks a lot of himself. He's God and we're not!

"Of course God thinks a lot of himself. He's God and we're not!"

That's not a good enough reason for me to put him above myself or my family. If he's got a problem with the way I see it, I fully invite him to come on down and speak to me himself. Maybe we can finally come to an understanding about exactly where he stands with me and what is required of him to get any further. Maybe he can enlighten me as to why I should give him anything more than I give George Bush or Bill Clinton.

And maybe if he was a better god, I wouldn't need to be my own god.

1) The "gift of eternal life" is a reward of restitution to the same MORTAL state that Adam enjoyed. It is not immortality (although that is a reward to "the little flock" or select few, the "Bride"). Adam had health and a perfect HUMAN nature until he sinned.

2) Since Yeshua suffered the penalty for our sins, and if the penalty for sin is eternal torment then He would still be there, not at the right hand of the throne. The wages of sin is/was death. Christ paid that price and was raised from The Dead (not from eternal torment) to receive His reward.

3) There are varying rewards according to Yahweh's righteous judgment. Eternal salvation is not a reward. You can be born or adopted into a family and still be the black sheep. Doesn't mean you're not part of the family, just means you probably won't get invited to the family picnic.

4) Another issue I have against the eternal torment heresy is that the Bible clearly states in numerous places and times that when you're dead, you're DEAD. The dead know not anything, etc. How can you be more "alive" (living in eternal torment) than you were as a breathing human being?

5) Just as there will be rewards for the faithful, there will be punishments for the unfaithful (beaten with many stripes, etc.).

6) Plus, if we all go to heaven or hell when we die then there's no need for a day of judgment as it seems we will have already been judged at the moment of our death.

There are many scriptural errors in the eternal damnation doctrine and they have served to turn many seekers of righteousness away from the loving creator.

It is not my intention to insult anyone, but you people, because of your personal cowardice, can not even accept the possibility that very bad things can happen to innocent souls in afterlife.

www.youtube.com...

The reason why humanity is so screwed up, is because of our collective cowardice.
I myself, am trying every day to be stronger, more courageous into accepting horrible truth's, just because I want to know THE TRUTH, whatever it may be.

You people, because of your fears, can not think logically.
Considering that we base are view of afterlife mostly on our experiences from this world, I would be logical to assume that bad things happen to good souls, just like bad things happen to good people.
BUT NOOOOOO!
You don't want to accept this.
This simple knowledge is too heavy for you.
And that is the reason why you create the most absurd philosophical systems, to mask the simple truth.
The simple truth being, that your own fears are blocking you to knowing reality as it is, in all it's simplicity and complexity and beauty and horror.

The link that I gave you, is a testimony of NDE Hell, told by an innocent women.

a reply to: whitewave

2) Since Yeshua suffered the penalty for our sins, and if the penalty for sin is eternal torment then He would still be there, not at the right hand of the throne. The wages of sin is/was death. Christ paid that price and was raised from The Dead (not from eternal torment) to receive His reward.

If, as you claim, Jesus "suffered the penalty for our sins" and "paid that price", then it would make more sense if he never came back.
The fact that he did come back should indicate that Jesus was doing something else, such as suffering as if he was one of us and wrongfully labeled as a criminal by the leadership then in power in Jerusalem.
His being raised from the dead was evidence that God had judged him as righteous despite all of that.

a reply to: john666

...you people.....You people

Just asking. Who is "you people"?

a reply to: deadeyedick

Try to imagine that we are maybe stuck in a place where at most we use only 10% of our brains

That is not true. It was debunked long ago.

The human brain is complex. Along with performing millions of mundane acts, it composes concertos, issues manifestos and comes up with elegant solutions to equations. It's the wellspring of all human feelings, behaviors, experiences as well as the repository of memory and self-awareness. So it's no surprise that the brain remains a mystery unto itself.

Adding to that mystery is the contention that humans "only" employ 10 percent of their brain. If only regular folk could tap that other 90 percent, they too could become savants who remember π to the twenty-thousandth decimal place or perhaps even have telekinetic powers.

Though an alluring idea, the "10 percent myth" is so wrong it is almost laughable, says neurologist Barry Gordon at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Although it's true that at any given moment all of the brain's regions are not concurrently firing, brain researchers using imaging technology have shown that, like the body's muscles, most are continually active over a 24-hour period. "Evidence would show over a day you use 100 percent of the brain," says John Henley, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Do people only use 10% of their brains?

Choice Guilt and Regret

Eternal damnation makes you think of consequences of your choices.
Do I really want to be known as this, my life's legacy.
Even knowing no one will ever know you consider facing them in the next life.

In the case of eternal damnation and living with your decisions I think its touches on truth not only because what's done is done and recorded in the universe but because the possibility of afterlife in some form.

I don't think punishments would be given other than self imposed.

If, as you claim, Jesus "suffered the penalty for our sins" and "paid that price", then it would make more sense if he never came back.
His being raised from the dead was evidence that God had judged him as righteous despite all of that.

It would only make more sense for Yeshua to never come back if the penalty for sin were eternal suffering, torment. But since the penalty for sin is death it makes perfect sense that Christ came back.
Christ being raised from the dead is evidence that God judged Christ as obedient unto death, same as He requires from all of us with the reward being the same.

a reply to: john666 No one is innocent. It is just a matter of remembering what you done wrong last time around but the point is too forget. Where is there a rule that says one must know what the punishment is for. However if one searches themselves then guilt can be found all around. What do you mean you people

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: deadeyedick

Try to imagine that we are maybe stuck in a place where at most we use only 10% of our brains

That is not true. It was debunked long ago.

The human brain is complex. Along with performing millions of mundane acts, it composes concertos, issues manifestos and comes up with elegant solutions to equations. It's the wellspring of all human feelings, behaviors, experiences as well as the repository of memory and self-awareness. So it's no surprise that the brain remains a mystery unto itself.



Adding to that mystery is the contention that humans "only" employ 10 percent of their brain. If only regular folk could tap that other 90 percent, they too could become savants who remember π to the twenty-thousandth decimal place or perhaps even have telekinetic powers.



Though an alluring idea, the "10 percent myth" is so wrong it is almost laughable, says neurologist Barry Gordon at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Although it's true that at any given moment all of the brain's regions are not concurrently firing, brain researchers using imaging technology have shown that, like the body's muscles, most are continually active over a 24-hour period. "Evidence would show over a day you use 100 percent of the brain," says John Henley, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Do people only use 10% of their brains?

That does not dispute that right now you are only using 10% of your brain. I was not implying that most of your brain is laying dorment but that you only require 10% function rate compared to a being that can optimily perform using all functions at once. No one is doing that and we all have much more potential. Your links do not say much other than hey you are wrong.

a reply to: whitewave

It would only make more sense for Yeshua to never come back if the penalty for sin were eternal suffering, torment. But since the penalty for sin is death it makes perfect sense that Christ came back.
Christ being raised from the dead is evidence that God judged Christ as obedient unto death, same as He requires from all of us with the reward being the same.

If all the penalty for sin was is death, something we all do anyway, then we all pay for our own sins when we die, then we could all just come back.
There would have been no reason for Jesus to die, if what you are claiming was true.

*sigh* Religious arguments are so tedious.

I'm not saying there won't be some form of punishment: the bible states there will be, especially for those who knew better and ignored the knowledge given them. What I'm saying is Christ is the only one who measured up to Yahweh's standard. We never could. He showed us the way...Him. In Christ we can follow in His footsteps, protected by His perfect sacrifice but even Christ did not escape death. Yahweh raised Him.

The bible states that when we die our bodies go back to the earth from where they came, our spirits go back to Yahweh Who breathed the breath of life into us (everyone's spirit, sinners and saints alike) and our souls await judgment. Someone who accepts Christ's salvation on their death bed will not get the same reward as someone who's been obedient to the Father their whole life. There will be 1000 years to learn just how awful sin is so that eventually we won't want to sin even if there were no penalties attached. If after that time is up and we still chose to offend our Maker then we're really pretty useless and a blight on the rest of humanity; we'll be erased.

As a dabbler in pottery, I occasionally run across a batch of clay that is just not amenable to my efforts to turn it into a useful vessel. I'd have to be an over reactionary psychopath to stomp it on the ground, burn it and CONTINUALLY devote my time to expressing my displeasure with it. I have better things to do like enjoy my loved ones and show off the pots that turned out well.

There is salvation and there is reward/punishment....all which are for believers. For non-believers there's "tossing the pot". Yes, the death is an eternal one but "the dead know not anything".

Hell was invented by people who had seen lava flowing from volcanoes and needed to explain that rather dramatic sight.

Just like Thor was invented to explain lightning.

Satan was invented to explain why your little kid got sick and died suddenly for no reason, as were witches which came in handy if there was a neighbor you didn't like.

God was invented as a placeholder for all the great unknowns, and then slowly over time, the idea became corrupted with all sorts of insanity attributed to both the Old Testament crabby crazy god, and the new slightly improved New Testament god, but both of them were murderous SOBs.

Then this figment of imagination decided to rape a 'virgin', reproduce himself, take bodily form, and after 33 years submit to a torturous death to somehow in convoluted minds everywhere, take away everyone's 'sins' for all eternity, for all humans ever to be born if only they 'believe' in a fairy tale that includes spending your eternity in a lava pit if you don't 'believe.

If anything, hell is right here, living with irrational minds telling lies all the time to themselves and ridiculing people who can see through it all as the monstrous idiocy it so obviously is.

a reply to: whitewave

*sigh* Religious arguments are so tedious.

So are you admitting that you can't support your earlier claims that Jesus "suffered the penalty for our sins" and "paid that price"?

What I'm saying is Christ is the only one who measured up to Yahweh's standard. We never could.

Jesus demonstrated that at least hypothetically, we could, and "so condemned sin in the flesh".

originally posted by: Agree2Disagree
a reply to: Unity_99

You can believe whatever you want...that's okay with me.

The reality of it is that hell, whether it is eternal conscious punishment or not, is not a place you want to be after you die.

Let's make our lives count and not have to rely on some "purification" process afterwards....or in a worst case scenario, an eternity of self-inflicted torment...

I'm not a gambling man...but if I was...I still wouldn't roll those dice....
A2D

So another words, you are not going to make this life count... but to live in perpetual fear of all things unknown, only partially known SOME things at best.

It is beyond time that someone try and prove ANY of this, or better yet DESTROY all of the myths...take oneself out from under all these systems of belief that did NOT start with any humans, and actually try to do something creative and new.

For example, why is it no one actually tries to do the things Jesus states are possible... someone WILL try, and I guarantee it will not be a Christian, but one who finally steps out from the tyrannical shields (veils) of illusion that keep you bonded.

The very freeing force, the thing that will finish you in the end, is just about run its course.

God, Hell, Heaven, Creator all likely existing in completely different forms, and for VERY different reasons than ANYONE believes, simply because they are unwilling or likely unable to even BEGIN to ask and find the actual ANSWERS.

Far more complex are the issues of this creation, than these books let on, but in the great programming of the DNA, the unfulfilled can imagine themselves to have actually found a truth, all the while actually having done nothing at all.

Even I look upon the greatest of avatars, all the highest most alleged free thinkers, and everyone of them boil down to believing this Creation has a meaning and a purpose that must be followed through, AT ALL COSTS, despite dire evidence to the contrary, they believe they must be burnt in the fires of testing, over many lifetimes, or one it does not matter.

ALL systems of higher education here , ALL are in the hands of beings who are amazingly clever,

As one poster here postulated, Almost.......open the mind much farther if you can, and see the very real possibility, that the Original "CREATOR" so to speak, after many attempts perhaps, realized the ONLY way to better itself or do anything NEW, it had to dissolve itself COMPLETELY inside that of its own CREATION, thus ensuring the REALNESS, with total not knowing, no plan, just flat out creation, FULLY WELL KNOWING, that a high likelihood of utter failure to become BOTH SPIRIT AND FLESH PERFECTLY FOREVER, was worth a shot.

And that for trillions of years, as things have evolved, uncountable beings have created all kinds of matrixes and whatever you would like to call them, and that beings exist that can create entire galaxies with their thoughts, until fairly recently on a cosmic scale,

A series of bad decisions multiplied endlessly till now, whence we have literally nothing left to try and repair any of it, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE locked in useless and endless struggles, and we have it manifest right here on earth, the fear that has swallowed everything, is keeping the very last creation, of a whole host of beings, from the job they were created to do, SUCCEED.

All religions, in the end, LIMIT EVERYTHING, for fear of the more powerful crushing them and in essence, destroying there very "saviours".

Those who are unrepairable at present, keep it ALL as it is, while it slowly descends into a never ending spiral of increasing negativity, so impercebtible even to the Spirits, that it is mostly forgotten.

This is why they preach, and I mean ALL AND EVERYBODY!!!, That God is love only LOVE....such limits they place on such a being, even in our limited languages.

They believe to the death that all things are one or the other!!!!! This is the ultimate proof that they cannot, and will not help, the damage is to great, UNLESS, enough can worm free of such limitation.....

Anyone care to try and see things without help of "enlightened beings" Teachers, religions, try something NEW, like FOCUS on the TRUTH AND REALITY, OF EVERYTHING....

I am.

Why would you ever suffer infinite amount of pain for a finite amount of bad things you did or infinite amount of good for a finite amount of good you did. Simply does not make sense ...


Besides , does the concept of time exists beyond this life . Is everything linear ? so how does one define "forever or eternal"